DESCRIPTION: This Keystone Conference, to be held in Park City on March 7-13, 1998, will focus on the formation and function of synapses. There will be 35 plenary speakers, divided into 10 sessions spread out over the 5 days. In standard Keystone fashion, the sessions will be in the morning and evening, with afternoons left open for physical activities. Speakers are required to submit an abstract of their presentations beforehand, which will be used as a program at the meeting but not circulated outside. The sessions include synaptogenesis, visualization of functional synapses, quantal analysis and dendritic integration of synaptic transmission, ACh and glutamate receptors, second messenger systems at synapses, mechanisms of transmitter release, synaptic plasticity, and synaptic structure and function in primate (including human) CNS. Non-invited participants are welcome, although they must register beforehand. Every participant may submit an abstract, and many of these abstracts are then displayed as posters at the meeting during each evening before the evening lectures. Half of the requested funds will be used to help defray costs for 20 more junior participants (graduate students and postdocs). The other half will be used to support, in part, the travel and lodging costs of the invited speakers. Keystone Conferences receive extensive publicity. Two major mailings occur in the spring and summer of 1997, and there are frequent advertisements in the major scientific journals. Many research departments also receive posters announcing the meeting schedule for the coming year. A special feature of this particular meeting is that it will be run concurrently with another Keystone Conference on the hippocampus at the same location. This will broaden the scope of possible lectures that participants can attend. Several of the sessions will be joint sessions with the other meeting. One benefit of this feature is that several of the speakers are common to both meetings, so their costs are shared between the individual conferences.